Twenty-three years after environmental protestors stopped Bryan Adams from giving a 42,000-person concert in Stanley Park, a new concert production company has been given the green light to use Vancouver’s iconic green space for a for-profit concert featuring Jon Bon Jovi.
Paper Rain Performances’ aspiration is a bit smaller than counterparts a generation ago. It plans to host a 14,000-seat concert on August 22 at Brockton Point, where the stage would be near a parking lot by the Totem Poles.
Attendees are expected to have a clear view of the city of Vancouver behind the stage.
“This concert is designed to put some more fun back into Vancouver,” said principal Dennis MacDonald, who has partnered with others, such as former Vancouver Canucks owner Arthur Griffiths.
Griffiths told Business in Vancouver that he expects the concert, which has a $2 million budget, to be profitable and lead to a string of concerts around the world.
“We wouldn’t not look to other places in the Lower Mainland and B.C. but I have ideas about Europe,” the 58-year-old said. “Maybe we could go to London or to France.”
Organizers also plan to donate $100,000 from the proceeds to the charity Imagine1Day, which was founded by Lululemon founder Chip Wilson and his wife Shannon Wilson. Imagine1Day builds schools and buys desks and other education necessities in Ethiopia.
Tickets start at $39.95 and range up to the extraordinary sum of $595 for one of 180 VIP seats that include access to a fully catered pavilion that has bar service. Griffiths said that 85 per cent of the tickets will be less than $300.
The entire venue will be licensed to serve alcohol thanks to it being catered and new provincial liquor regulations that allow caterers to serve alcohol. Organizers, therefore, did not need to get a special event liquor licence.
The organizers decided not to have a full-day concert because, MacDonald said, they were more comfortable doing a concert and not expanding the event into being a festival. As such, the show is expected to start at about 9 p.m. and end by 11 p.m., following all encores.
Despite that short time horizon, organizers said there will be a component of the event that relates to First Nations. There will also be some kind of “arts” component and an opening act that MacDonald expects to announced within the next five weeks.
No public money is needed for the event, which will use Contemporary Services Canada for crowd management and policing. The Vancouver Park Board is charging a per-head fee that is likely to total about $60,000, MacDonald said.
Tickets are slated to go on sale June 20 through Tourism Vancouver-owned Tickets Tonight.
Paper Rain Performances calls its concert series “Urban Forest” because it will feature some of the world’s most popular artists in outdoor, natural settings – not indoor venues.
About 80 per cent of the attendees will be in seats although there will be non-chair opportunities to be on the grass, MacDonald said.
“We’re bringing the best artists in the world to some of the most extraordinary backdrops,” MacDonald said.
Both MacDonald and Griffiths live in Vancouver although Griffiths spends some time in the U.S. given that he owns energy company Eaglestream Inc. He also helps companies raise venture capital.
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